The Boxer

Not long ago, Michelle Rodriguez was a customer service rep at a Toys R Us
store in New Jersey, pulling long hours and getting hostile glares from coworkers who thought she was too friendly to shoppers. She didn't mind the
hassles. To Rodriguez it was strictly a means to an end  a menial, part-time
job she needed to earn $300 for audition photos that would allow her to pursue
her dream of becoming an actress.

All those days helping harried moms find Pokemon toys and Hello Kitty dolls
finally paid off. After working as a barely seen extra in a "Mad About You"
episode and a half-dozen films including "Summer of Sam" and "The Cradle Will Rock,"
the 22-year-old actress is knocking out critics with her performance in
"Girlfight," a low-budget, high-voltage drama that won prestigious awards at
Sundance and Cannes. Portraying a female Rocky who evolves from high-school
brawler to prize-winning boxer, Rodriguez comes across "like a young Brando,"
says director Karyn Kusama, who chose her out of 350 other actresses who
auditioned for the part.

The odds seemed stacked against Rodriguez. Born in Texas to a Puerto Rican
dad and a Dominican mom, she bounced around the Caribbean, then moved to Jersey
City, N.J., before reaching her teens. Her dad died early on, so she spent her teen years living with her mother and grandmom, both devout Jehovah's
Witnesses. She struggled for years to express herself creatively, and she had a hard time at school  she was expelled at least a half-dozen times.

Dropping out at 17, Rodriguez earned her GED and spent a full year "without
any direction," composing poetry and short stories before deciding to write
screenplays. Figuring "the best way to learn about movies was to become an
actress," she fell for an old showbiz scam, signing up with a talent agency that
charged hundreds of dollars for publicity pictures and then sent her on open
casting calls advertised in Backstage.

Seeing an ad for a "female Latina boxing chick," she showed up for the
"Girlfight" open call. Despite the fact she arrived late and did nothing more than
say her name and where she was from, she was one of three women called back.
Indeed, pitted against nearly 350 other actresses and feeling out of place at
the call, Rodriguez became pessimistic and upset during the "Girlfight" audition,
her dark, mesmerizing eyes turning fiery with frustration.

Luckily, Kusama picked up on her tension and found it downright
electrifying. "She was a tremendous presence," recalls the director. "Michelle
had a whole other energy compared to the more seasoned actresses there. She was
this real wild card  she had no experience and never even held down a steady
job for long. It was like betting all your money on a horse that had never run a
race before, but I moved forward with blind faith. She was a natural."

After four callbacks where Rodriguez aced out other contenders, Kusama sent
her to the gym and made her train for a week before awarding her the part. Then
the director gave the feisty upstart a small stipend to live on, enrolled her in
acting classes, and loaded her up with stacks of background material. There were
videos of brooding, gutsy movies like "A Streetcar Named Desire," "A Woman Under
the Influence," "Gloria" and "The Hustler," along with method acting manuals by
Stanislavski and Uta Hagen.

Even more heady was the physical workout she endured. Already lean and mean
from rollerblading, biking and hiking, she engaged in a full boxing regimen at
Gleason's Gym, began running two miles a day, and packed on more than 10 pounds
to bulk up her frame. Undergoing rigorous training for five hours a day, six
days a week, Rodriguez transformed herself from a reasonably fit woman into a
muscular Amazon. "My whole body began to change," she says, taking a deep drag
off an American Spirit cigarette. "I morphed into a powerful being.

So powerful, in fact, that she didn't realize her own strength. "I learned
defense pretty fast," she says. "I dislocated a girl's arm once. Well, actually,
she punched me at the wrong angle so she messed herself up. But I'd walk outside
the gym and want people to pick a fight with me. If you go and look for trouble,
you'll find it. My ego was about to run away with me."

It's not just brawn that attracts Rodriguez. "When I saw Jodie Foster in 'The
Silence of the Lambs,' it blew my mind," she says. "Strong female characters we need more of them. It's a shame you have to be a bitch to be respected.
Jodie, Helen Hunt, and believe it or not Julia Roberts all maintain a
conservative style but made it big without exploiting themselves." Post-
"Girlfight," Rodriguez is also gaining more respect, starring in the Spike Lee
produced "3 A.M." with Danny Glover and Pam Grier, as well as the race-car drama
"Redline" starring Vin Diesel. She's aware of the tag "Latina actress" and hopes
to break free of that label by getting more physical in future films.

"I'd like to be a female 007," she says, doing a kickboxing move and waving
her arms ju-jitsu style. The killer punk rock boots she's wearing with flames roaring up
the sides make her fancy footwork all the more dramatic. She laughs. "I'm far
from a feminist, but I'm tired of seeing pretty girls falling for men who get
them out of trouble." Hollywood, be warned: This is one pretty girl who doesn't
pull her punches.